> assuming the US Citizens on HN reflect public opinion
They're not a very acccurate reflection. For one, their demographics are very different.
> then that would reduce support on HN even further than I estimate above.
Reduce support for what? My claim suggests that the more folks know about US gun laws, the less they support current law and the more they support less strict laws, and I didn't even address the folks who want more strict gun laws. (When you ask them the same questions, many of them have the same reaction as "status quo" folk. They want "more", but they don't want things as strict as they already are.)
BTW - That's why the whole "assault weapon" campaign is political genius. The guns in question are "military" in the same sense that the cars that you can get at a Chevy dealer are race cars (that is, not at all). It plays on ignorance.
Then again, a large number of folks think that "tactical vest" means "bullet proof". (It means "lots of pockets"; think fishing vest, only black or camo fabric.)
> Do people really think their handgun is going to help them resist a predator drone strike?
For a single person, or a small group? I know of no one who believes that.
> The US military is vastly more powerful than any gun owner. Do people really think they can compete?
The US military is composed predominately of gun owners :).
> What's more, advocates of legal gun ownership often also push for more military spending (though that might be less true here on HN). Am I missing something here?
From my perspective, this is almost pure cognitive dissonance. They also tend to support things like NSA spying and restrictions on effective encryption.
>do you really think that a bunch of citizens with handguns will make any difference against the largest and most high-tech military in the world?
Considering the difficulty our armed services are having against even less sophisticated resistance in the middle east, i think you seriously underestimate the average american and overestimate the average soldier.
>the rational conclusion must be that making guns illegal across the board is not in fact "punishing law-abiding citizens" but rather saving them from unnecessary crime.
Save for that whole pesky second amendment thing, which affirms the right to keep and bear arms, "rationality" be damned.
> says in the US 44% support the status quo and 11% support less strict [gun] laws.
A solid majority don't know what the laws are so "support the status quo" is interesting.
They tend to believe that the laws are less restrictive than they actually are. When you quiz them about specific "proposals", which happen to be current law, you find that those proposals are significantly less popular than the status quo.
Two examples of this are wrt concealed carry and automatic weapons. On the former, very few people think that police should have complete and arbitrary discretion wrt CCW, yet they do in the jurisdictions with the majority of the population.
> Try living in a country with gun control laws for a bit and see where you feel safer.
You mean like the UK? The UK has a horrendous violent crime rate - four times that of the US. So if people were "afraid" in proportion to actual risk, they should be more afraid there than in the US, no?
Or do you mean like Sweden? Sweden's reported rape rate is about twice that of the US.
I actually do live in a country with gun control laws. I live in New York City. And I don't own a gun. But that doesn't mean I have to accept unfounded claims about how bad guns are.
The truth is that the statistics are ambiguous. Every time gun laws change in the US, partisans claim it'll have a huge effect but the actual effect is hard to measure. Florida didn't become "the gunshine state" when they liberalized CCWs. (Rape rates did somewhat decrease there, but it's hard to connect that reliably to the change) On the margin, neither tightening NOR loosening gun laws is a panacea.
I'm not sure whose "consensus" you're referring to, but it's not the consensus of criminologists. The gradual loosening of CCW restrictions nationwide came only after very careful study repeatedly determined there's no significant increase in violence when more people are carrying hidden guns. You're free to believe there's some sort of "threshold effect", that if we got gun ownership levels below some magic number X, that suddenly everything would be better then, but at this point that's just an article of faith - there's no math supporting it.
> Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided.
I’m not sure how you mean adorable and misguided.
1) If you mean it would be ineffective against a military invasion, I have to disagree. The military has never won a guerrilla war, let alone one on their own turf. Think Afghanistan on steroids with how many guns are in the states.
2) If you mean that being politically active would be far more effective though then I 100% agree.
I know some gun owners in the states, and my impression is that for some it quickly turns into standard consumerism. Maybe their first gun was for self defence, but not the 20th. They can obsess over their guns, similar to how people obsess over other gizmos like the latest iPhone etc.
> Guns are seen as an integral part of self-reliance by many.
For context, can you clarify if the many you're referring to there are some fellow USA citizens?
If so, I'll note that USA is < 5% of global population, and also note a very fresh Pew paper[0] which indicated more than half of that population was keen on stricter gun controls. So 'many' has some caveats around it.
> They provide you with a reasonably effective defense.
Against what? Other people with guns, or other people with feebler weapons?
If it's the former, then we're back to a basic escalation problem, and it's what most other western nation states have avoided falling prey to by, simply, not playing that game.
If you trust your fellow citizens with arms - who is it that you don't trust and that you need a weapon for 'effective defense'?
As to:
> ... in other words disarming populace is step down a slippery slope.
I really can't speak to what it looks like from within the borders of the USA, but from outside, it feels that the USA is well down that slippery slope (of eroded freedoms, and citizenry exploitation) compared to many other democratic nations - so guns in the hands of private citizens don't appear to be a panacea.
> Seems that only a minority of American (households) own firearms, and the ones that do may simply make more noise than the (silent) majority that do not.
Ownership is more concentrated:
> But America’s gun super-owners, have amassed huge collections. Just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms – half of America’s total gun stock. These owners have collections that range from eight to 140 guns, the 2015 study found. Their average collection: 17 guns each.
> Some are collectors with elaborately curated selections of historical firearms, while others are ‘just accumulators’. They say it is surprisingly easy to get to 17
> with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided
I think your ideas are adorable. An armed populace is extremely effective in curbing government crackdown on people and yes, that is even true for small arms weapons aside from the fact that US soldiers would probably defect en masse. You think they would roll out the tanks? Even if they did, that is a fight no army could ever win. The Taliban started with sticks and stones and ended with attack helicopters.
I am not from the US and I don't think there is a more successful democracy or nation for that matter, so maybe other can learn a bit. The French Revolution was armed and an armed populace is a classical fear of rulers and the motivation for weapon laws.
There are advantages for policing of course. Policemen in Europe can be relatively sure they aren't fired upon in many cases and that results in completely different form of conduct with state executive forces. But there are other arguments for the US to allow arms, for topological and geographical reasons alone.
> I don't know if this number is correct, but I just can't understand why guns are still allowed in USA.
Lots of reasons. One is that if congress tried to pass a law doing so, the supreme court would probably stop it thanks to the 2nd amendment. And changing the 2nd amendment is politically infeasible for a whole host of reasons (many states don't have the requisite support, AND calling a constitutional convention opens up a ton of other issues). Oh, and there's literally 300,000,000+ guns floating around in the US. How the hell is the government supposed to collect all of those? How of the budget are you willing to spend on that? Europe hasn't exactly had the most luck trying to disarm THEIR citizens, why would it work in the US with less governmental trust? [0]
But aside from the constitutional and practical reasons... "gun ownership" and "homicide rate" are basically uncorrelated worldwide. You'll often hear otherwise, but the two most common sidesteps are to change to "gun violence rate" instead of "homicide rate" (which includes gun suicides but drops murder by other means) or to only include "western" countries which has its own set of issues. Lies, dammed lies, and statistics!
Finally, even if your goal is only to reduce mass murders, restricting guns isn't really a great way to do that. The Nice truck attack [1] with 87 dead, Oklahoma City bombing [2] with 168 dead, and the more recent Kyoto Animation arson attack [3] with 35 dead all show that guns aren't exactly required to kill a bunch of people. (and also completely ignoring 9/11) Forcing people away from guns to other methods might actually increase deaths in such situations.
> we're not dumb enough to allow rampant legal gun ownership
I respectfully submit that much of Europe's "enlightenment" in this area (including the UK) is not due to the wisdom and foresight of its leaders, but due to the historical accident that it was already densely populated when firearms were invented.
Widespread gun ownership was a reasonable decision in the US at the colonies' inception, and once it's implemented, the switching costs of changing to restricted ownership permanently become high. I'll elaborate on this:
When the US colonies first started, they had a tiny population trying to hold their own, spread out in a vast wilderness. A gun can be used to defend against criminals, hostile natives, or can be used for hunting. Remember, homes were often miles apart, there were no telephones to dial 911, and the nearest police force might be in one of relatively few cities or forts, tens or hundreds of miles away. Not letting people own weapons would have made the colonists' lives much harder.
Once enough guns are out there, it gets harder and harder to argue that they should be outlawed, because:
(1) A culture of gun ownership develops, which will be upset if you try to take them away
(2) A sizable number of guns will presumably escape the confiscation program and enter the hands of criminals
Add to this, the country's experiences during the war of independence convinced its founders of the benefits of empowering the citizens to rise up against foreign invaders or an oppressive government.
As for why there's not more support for "common-sense regulation," no less a hacker than Eric S. Raymond has recently given a cogent explanation [1] [2].
> The same goes for high powered fully automatic military style rifles. Zero use for hunting an animal, perfectly tailored for hunting humans. That's disturbing to me, and I wouldn't want to live in a society that vehemently fights for the right to bear these arms.
> hey look ma I bought a M16 from Walmart today hur hur
It's a sad thing that your opinion will soon be discredited on the basis that you do not know the fact that automatic weapons are much more strictly controlled in the US, and that they are very rarely used by criminals.
I also live in a country with a strict gun control (to get a gun, apart from a plausible reason to own one, doing an expensive course on gun usage and safety, tons of paperwork, psychological tests and similar stuff, you also need to have one of the 16 county sheriffs to approve, and they usually don't). The result is 20 homicides using guns last year, in the country of 40 million. Recently I was having a lunch in a bar, during which two policemen entered the bar, also for a lunch. I have seen their guns at their belts, and it made me feel just as uneasy as when taking night bus home, with drunk people shouting insults at each other, even though I knew that they would only use guns to protect me.
> This is one of those topics where US preferences and those of HN ... have been moving in opposite directions.
I'm not sure I agree. Many posts that even mention simple facts (not arguments) that might be harmful to the proliferation of guns get immediate arguments and voted down. [EDIT: For example, my post above is down to -2.]
(See my post below for some more polls that might interest you.)
>but there's also gun laws like in California that affect large populations of gun owners.
Is your rebuttal that there are laws?
>"they just don't understand" to the people who actually have to live with the laws
No, I just don't care. Guns should be a utility.
>As a gun owner
So, I guess my question to you is: aside from home defense (which surely requires a limited amount of rounds) and practice (which can be done by a range selling and enforcing no carry out of rounds, like in many other countries), what is your daily use case for firearms?
> Since the anti-gun lobby cannot outlaw them completely they tack on automatic sentence multipliers
I rarely hear anyone say they want to outlaw guns completely, but perhaps that was meant as hyperbole? In any case, do you have some evidence that the multipliers were a reaction to difficulties in regulating guns?
Most Americans believe guns should be regulated more stringently; I would guess that they believe these laws are just, not a political trick. Also, at least sometimes American law more stringently punishes crimes committed with any weapon, guns or otherwise, than crimes committed without one.
>Not being US resident or citizen I wonder if this is the effect of the gun availability
Almost no effect. I live in a state where over 2/3 of people own guns (usually multiple guns) and we have one of the lowest murder rates in America and a very low rate of police killing.
> what I think you're saying is that law-abiding people don't shoot people. Well, duh...
No, OP complains that in the U.S. 'everyone' can carry firearms legally (not actually true: felons, wife-beaters, citizens of New Jersey & similar folks are prohibited from carrying firearms) and thus we have a high murder rate. I pointed out that the issue is not the legal right, since the folks committing the murders are not, for the most part, legally armed.
> I'm always curious why Americans don't get this.
There's this really straightforward clear correlation between arms-bearing and liberty (viz.: an unarmed man is fundamentally not free). Americans seem to get this; many other folks don't for some reason. I'm always curious why not.
> Shouldn't they have been using their arsenals to protect America?
Rebellion is a last resort. Things haven't gotten bad enough yet.
> when in the last, say, 100 years
This number is conveniently chosen to be just below the Civil War.
> they'd just find another excuse
Self defense? If we were some European country that's historically always had only a few gun owners and tight control of guns since firearms were invented, then gun control would make some kind of sense, it would be possible to control the small number of firearms that exist. But the US started out as a frontier country where firearms were necessary for survival, and gun ownership has always been part of the American way for a large number of people. So there are millions of guns already out there -- too many to possibly control.
If the massive supermajority necessary to repeal a constitutional amendment and outlaw firearms magically materialized tomorrow, those millions of guns would still be out there. Presumably drug dealers, rapists, bank robbers, stalkers, and other criminals would keep their guns, and there would be enough remaining in underworld circulation to supply future members of those professions. If a person wants a gun badly enough, he'll always be able to get one. Gun control wouldn't significantly reduce the number of bad people who have access to guns, it would just curtail access for responsible, law-abiding citizens.
Guns -- and in particular concealed carry laws -- also act as a deterrent for criminals. If someone's in a desperate situation and contemplating crime, it seems to me that the possibility of a hole in the head from an armed bystander would make them hesitate a lot more than if the worst-case scenario involves getting a roof and three square meals a day at taxpayer expense (even if they get the death penalty it'll be many years before the appeals are exhausted and the sentence is carried out).
At least to me, these considerations don't sound like "excuses," but well-reasoned arguments. Please point out the holes.
Gun control debate in the US centers around several proposals: restricting semi-automatic firearms, restricting handguns in particular, and additional checks at firearm purchase time.
Problem is the first two:
A) Do not matter in regards to suicide. A semi-automatic rifle with a 30-round magazine is no more useful than a double barrel shotgun (a firearm type that is legal in most countries, even those that prohibit all other types of firearms).
B) Significantly turn gun owners (who are the ones mailing their constituents) against all kind of firearm regulation, including the last kind of measures, such as additional background checks, requirements to demonstrate safe handling, etc...
California has a ten day waiting period for firearm purchases and as a result has a lower firearm suicide rate despite the fact that handguns and semi-automatic firearms are readily available. While they're restricted to ten round magazines and -- in the case of military-style firearms -- require using a tool to release the magazine, it's unlikely that these laws matter much in regards to suicide.
They're not a very acccurate reflection. For one, their demographics are very different.
> then that would reduce support on HN even further than I estimate above.
Reduce support for what? My claim suggests that the more folks know about US gun laws, the less they support current law and the more they support less strict laws, and I didn't even address the folks who want more strict gun laws. (When you ask them the same questions, many of them have the same reaction as "status quo" folk. They want "more", but they don't want things as strict as they already are.)
BTW - That's why the whole "assault weapon" campaign is political genius. The guns in question are "military" in the same sense that the cars that you can get at a Chevy dealer are race cars (that is, not at all). It plays on ignorance.
Then again, a large number of folks think that "tactical vest" means "bullet proof". (It means "lots of pockets"; think fishing vest, only black or camo fabric.)
reply